Where: On the main screen, F2

A live performance page designed for fast and easy live muting, soloing and grouped effects. You can really rip in like nothin' else!  You can mute and unmute tracks 1 to 16 from the pads, while a sequence plays or before you start it. On the main screen, F2 now reads Perform.

The sixteen tracks are laid out the same way as the pads, so pad 1 is track 1 and so on. Hit a pad to mute its track, and hit it again to bring it back; muted tracks are shown inverse. Along the top you get the sequence name, the bar and the time, running as it plays.

F1 Mute

Pads mute and unmute tracks. The default.

F2 Solo

A pad mutes every other track. Hit it again for your earlier mutes; hit another pad to move the solo.

F3 All on

Unmute everything.

F4

Back to the screen you were on. WAIT FOR KEY too.

STOP, PLAY

STOP stops the sequence and the page stays up. PLAY starts it again, still on the page.

Hold TIMING CORRECT

Pads play and roll as normal, for note repeat.

You can also open it while stopped, set up your mutes, and then press PLAY to start.

Where: Perform Mode, with the cursor on SEQ

On the stock main screen the wheel only reaches the sequence after the one playing. In Perform Mode, with the cursor on SEQ, turn the wheel as far as you like: the title reads Next: 7-VERSE, and that sequence starts when the one playing ends.

Empty sequences are skipped. If you change your mind, turn back to the one that's playing and nothing is queued. When the sequencer is stopped, the wheel just changes the sequence as usual. It works in song mode too, but your mutes don't carry over to the next sequence.

Where: Perform Mode, cursor down to the groups

The second line shows the four control groups, one kind at a time. Press ↓ to go from the sequence to the groups, ← → to pick a group, and turn the wheel. ASSIGN steps the kind: Tune, Filter, Level, and round again.

The Note Variation slider follows the cursor. On a group it sets that group over its whole range (Tune ±24 semitones, Filter and Level ±100), heard from the next note. After the cursor moves, the slider leaves the new value alone until it passes it. On SEQ it is the stock slider.

AFTER holds the slider. With AFTER lit, a slider move only holds a value and the sound doesn't change. Hold values on as many groups and kinds as you like, then put AFTER out: they all go in at once.

You can also type a value with the number keys (press + or − straight after for the sign), and ERASE sets the group back to 0. These are the same values as on the Control Groups page, and they're saved with the program.

Where: Program/Sounds, then 6

This draws the whole sound on the LCD, so you can trim by eye and also get some real time visual previews on the effects. Between In and Out the wave is solid, and the parts you've trimmed off are dotted. You can also get here with HELP from the stock Edit Sound page.

F1 Play

Play In to Out. Hold it to loop while you move an edge.

← → and the wheel

Pick In or Out, then move it. Turn fast and it goes further.

0–9

Type the time: 1 5 0 0 is 000.015.00.

Pad

Switch to that pad's sound and play it. Hold to loop while you trim.

> and LOCATE

> plays from In; LOCATE stops.

<

One step back, from any screen of the editor.

ENTER

Leave, keeping In and Out as the sound's start and end.

You don't have to save a trim: In and Out stay with the sound when you leave. The two fields in the top-right corner are the mute group and control group of the pad that plays the sound. Press → from Out to reach them, and turn the wheel to change them. All of this works while a sequence is playing, so you can hear the trim in context.

Where: Wave editor, F4

The wheel picks a tool, or type its number. → moves onto its settings, ↓ opens the list of them all. F1 Do it runs it on In to Out; F3 Undo and Redo swap it back and forth.

00 Duplicate

A copy, NAME-CP, to work on.

01 Truncate

Cut down to In–Out for good and free the memory.

02 Multi Sel

Pick several pads; the next tool runs on each of their sounds.

03 Normalise

Loudest point to full level, no clipping.

04 Reverse

Backwards.

05 Tune

Pitch and level. Resample rewrites it at that pitch.

06 Fade

In, Out or both, over a share of the part.

07 Gain

−48 to +48 dB; it tells you when it clips.

08 Delete

Cut In–Out out and close the gap.

09 Compressor

Glue, Squash or Pump.  Cursor Right for more settings.

10 Crush

Lo-fi rate and bits.

11 Distort

Crunch, Grind, Fuzz or DHC. Peaks never pass full level.

12 Tape

Warm saturation, a little hiss, a slow wow.

13 Stretch

Time stretch to a percent or to bars.

Before a tool changes the sound, a hidden copy is kept so Undo can put it back. If there isn't enough memory for that copy, it asks you before going ahead.

Where: Tools, number 09

This compressor evens out a sound without dragging its hiss up with it. Amount runs from 1 (gentle) to 10 (heavy). The threshold is set from the sound's own peak, so the same Amount does the same job on a quiet sound as on a loud one.

Glue

Light, for gluing a loop or a mix together.

Squash

Brings up the body of drums and breaks.

Pump

Ducks on the hits and swells between them.

→ cursor goes on to Attack and Release (1 to 10), Mix (the dry sound under it) and Make-up (Auto, or up to +24 dB). Each style keeps its own settings, and Reset brings back its suggestions. Stereo sides are linked, so the image holds.

Where: Tools, number 13

This is Akai's own time stretch that's never before been on the MPC3000, run from the wave editor. You can stretch by a percentage (25 to 2000%) or fit the sound to 1 to 16 bars at the sequence tempo, using the Cyclic, Intell or Free method. The result is a new sound, NAME-TSnn, and the pad plays it. Undo puts the original back, and Done keeps the stretch.

F4 Cancel stops a long one and leaves the original as it was. On a Multi Sel pick it stretches every picked sound and puts each on its pad.

Where: Wave editor, F3 then F1

Play a break and tap pads along with it, the way you'd play it. Each tap starts a new slice on the pad you hit.

Your first pad starts the sound from In, and a playhead runs across the wave so you can see where you are. Each tap drops a marker straight away. If you hit a pad that's already used, the slice moves on to the next free pad; hit the same pad twice to end its slice early and leave a gap. When the sound ends, or when you press F2 Stop, press F4 Done to keep the zones.

WAIT FOR KEY in the wave editor arms it too.

Where: CHOPZONE, F2 or F3

Auto puts markers on the hits. Sens sets roughly how many, the biggest first, and the markers follow as you turn. Offset moves them all up to 50 ms either way.

Equal divides In–Out into as many zones as you pick. No Assign makes the sounds without putting them on pads.

Either way, press Do it and hit the pad you want the first slice on. The rest follow on from there.

Dialling the zones in

← → step through every edge, << >> through the zones; the wheel, the number keys and the zoom page move the one you're on. Hit a zone's pad to hear it, hold it to loop. F1 Split cuts a zone in two. ERASE deletes a marker; hold it to clear them all.

F3 Select picks zones by their pads, and the wheel moves the same edge of each one together. A zone can take a mute group, so each slice cuts off the last.

Where: CHOPZONE, F4

F4 CHOP makes each zone a sound on its pad in the current program, named after the source: 909-BD1-01, 909-BD1-02 and on. The wheel adds a tail of up to 250 ms to every slice first.

Open CHOPZONE again on the sound you chopped and F4 reads Undo. The slices go, every pad plays what it did before, and the zones come back to move and chop again.

Where: Program/Sounds, then 9

The field under it, CtlGrp:, puts a pad in one of four control groups. Each has its own Tune, Level and Filter, added to every pad in it at the next hit: turn the kit down, tune a set of slices together, close the filter on the hats.

Tune ±240, Level ±100 %, Filter ±100. The wheel or the number keys set a value. Hit a pad to see its groups on the line under the table, and change them there.

Edit All CG, F3 on Program/Sounds 2: while it is on, an edit to one pad in a control group goes to every pad in the group.

Where: Program/Sounds, 1, then F2

This shows which sound is on every pad in a bank, all on one screen. Pick a pad and turn the wheel to step through the sounds in memory. The change happens as you turn, so there's nothing to confirm.

F2 Levels

Each pad's mixer level instead, to set there.

F3 Swap

Trade two pads with all their settings. Recorded sequences sound exactly as before: the pads move, not the notes.

Where: Disk, 7, then hold F1

Hold F1 Load and hit a pad: the sound loads and the pad plays it. A pad on its own plays what's on it now and shows its name.

If a sound with the same name is already in memory, it asks first, and can load a second copy as KICK2.

STOP now stops every sound that's still ringing as well as the sequence, long samples included. If the sequencer is already stopped, STOP cuts anything you played from the pads.